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PREACHEB ON THE SABBATH AFTEB THE BEATH OF 



GENERAL WM. H. HARRISON, 



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LATE 



PRESIDENT 



OF THE 



UNITED STATES. 



By ICHABOD S. SPENCER, 

Pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church, in Brooklyn. 







NEW- YORK : 

PUBLISHED BY JOHN S. TAYLOR & CO. 

BRICK CHURCH CHAPEL, 145 NASSAU STREET. 

1841. 



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W. S. Dorr, Printer, 
123 Fulton Street. 



SERMON. 



PSALM CXLVI. 3 — 5. 



Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no 
help. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth ; in that very day his 
thoughts perish. Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose 
hope is in the Lord his God. 

What words could be more appropriate to this 
day and place, or more appropriate to the sensibili- 
ties of sadness, which fill your hearts ? The Pre- 
sident of the United States is no more ! A nation 
is clothed in mourning ! Death, for the first time, 
has invaded the highest seat of office, in the govern- 
ment of our nation, clothed the Presidential chair 
in sackcloth, and involved a nation in mourning. 
Your hearts feel it ; they all feel it. Such an event 
is a national calamity ; and our respect for human 
nature would be diminished, if we did not behold 
the solemnity and the sympathy of affliction rising 
above all other passions, and burying, on a day like 
this, all the animosity and rancor of political strifes. 
It is so. We are not here as politicians, or as par- 
tizans. We are here, as men ; — as Americans, who 
love our country and its constitution ; — as mortals, 
warned by the death of a fellow mortal ; — as Chris- 
tians, to recognize, in our sadness, the hand of 
Almighty God, and to have our sad and solemn 
sensibilities join their voice, to that of his word, 



Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, 
in whom there is no help. His breath goeth forth ; he 
returneth to the earth. Happy is he that hath the God 
of Jacob for his help ; whose hope is in the Lord his 
God. 

Neither the offices of this day, nor of this occa- 
sion, belong so much to politics and to eloquence, 
as they belong to grief and to religion. Under the 
hand of God, an event has occurred, which deeply 
affects our country. It is such an event, of such a 
nature, as, in his Holy Word, he has often called us 
to notice. We could not be good Christians, or 
good Americans, if we should allow ourselves to be 
wholly unaffected by it ; and we should fall beneath 
the duty we owe ourselves, as citizens of the state 
and as mortal men, if we did not pause to enquire 
with deep sensibility and profound submission, what 
lessons the God of nations designs to teach us. 

The occasion is too sad for eulogy. It is a 
nation's calamity, and a nation's mourning. We 
are to regard, not so much the man, as the Presi- 
dent; rather the station he filled and the mighty 
interests connected with his filling it well, than his 
character, as a statesman or a citizen. Eulogy 
might find materials for her pencil, for aught we 
know, in the chequered and eventful story of his 
life ; in the integrity which marked his official con- 
duct ; and in the modesty of his private living ; and 
in the philanthropy which every where character- 
ized his intercourse with men. But with these, 
we have little to do. It is enough for us, that he 
was recently placed at the head of this great nation, 



and that now, so soon and so suddenly, he is placed 
in his grave ! The occasion is too solemn, the day, 
the place too sacred, our hearts too sad, for the 
least recurrence to party sentiments. It becomes 
us rather to enquire, how religion — how God, its 
Author, would have us affected, in regard to na- 
tional government and this calamity. Nor do we 
need any thing more. However firm his opponents 
may have been in their opposition to his official 
elevation, death has disarmed opposition ; and now, 
the occasion speaks to us all, as men, as Ameri- 
cans, as mortals, and flings away into the distance 
every vestige of political rancor ; while it teaches 
us from the mute tongue of death, such lessons as 
no other tongue can utter ! 

We will not stop to prove to you, from the Word 
of God, the propriety and duty of noticing such an 
event, on a day, and in a place like this. Not a 
party, but a nation mourns. It is a national shock, 
and warning. And a single moment's recollection 
will call to your mind, how often in his Word, our 
Maker calls on us to notice his dealings with na- 
tions, and those who rule over them. Our religion, 
while it lays its foundation deep, in the sanctified 
sensibilities and heavenly hopes of a regenerated 
spirit, fails not to instruct us in our duties of citi- 
zenship, and to warn us against too much reliance 
upon any mere human instrumentalities, for any of 
our hoped-for felicities. 

A moment's thought too, will be enough to con- 
vince you, how precious are the interests which 
stand connected with a national event like this. 



Amid all our pursuits, we need some foundation for 
our reliances. Fluctuation and uncertainty are very 
unhappy for us. Instability and change in the 
counsels of a nation affect all its interests ; and are 
as unfavorable to mental culture, to good morals, 
to good neighborhood, and to religion, as they are 
to our mere worldly interests. Oh ! how often, 
have the excitements of political affairs, — the dis- 
appointments which grow out of a nation's altered 
policy, — the agitations of public life, and especially 
the absorbing interests and sensibilities waked into 
exercise through a whole nation, when the trumpet- 
summons of war calls her strong men to the high 
places of the field ; — how lamentably often, have 
such things called off the minds of a people, from 
their personal attention to salvation, and spread a 
demoralizing influence over the whole face of so- 
ciety ! Religion has mourned, — the church has 
languished, — her sabbaths have been dishonored, — 
her sermons and her sacred communions have lost 
their influence, by reason of that national action, 
which spreads its effects through the whole frame- 
work of society ! Our religion is wise, when it 
calls us to pray for kings, and all that are in autho- 
rity ; and when it calls us to notice an event, like 
the death of the President ; and seeing the hand of 
God in it, calls us, as men, as Christians, as Ame- 
ricans, to aim at improving a calamity, which has 
clothed us in sackcloth ! 

( Sut we feel a delicacy and find a difficulty in 
attempting to discharge, with fidelity, the duties 
plainly incumbent upon the ministry of God on such 



an occasion. We have a two-fold trial, sad and 
perplexing on each of its parts. — On the one hand, 
the division of men into two great political parties, 
at a time, and in circumstances, when such mo- 
mentous interests are supposed to be <at stake, con- 
stitutes a matter of difficulty to us. At such a time, 
a faithful minister of God is not likely to be rightly 
understood. He is extremely liable to be misap- 
prehended. Each of the opposing bodies would 
arrogate to itself all the services and all the senti- 
ments of every man around them. Each would 
enforce into its service, even the ministry, whose 
sole work should be, to teach men the truth of God, 
and lead them in paths of righteousness to heaven. 
In the utterance of these truths, it not only some- 
times, but very commonly happens, that their re- 
proofs will fall, now on one side, and then on ano- 
ther. That line of right and wrong — that immutable 
and holy line of distinction, drawn by the hand of 
God, on which the eye of the minister should stead- 
ily rest, as he attempts the duties of his office, is 
not the line of an earthly partizanship, or earthly 
preferences. As he walks upon it, he will some- 
times be obliged to cross the path of one, and 
sometimes the path of the other, of the conflicting 
parties. Every such step is likely to be deemed 
an error, and an injury, by those whose minds are 
made up, and whose feelings are enlisted, on those 
mere earthly considerations, which it becomes the 
functions of the minister of God, to fling into the 
back-ground of his contemplations ; — while he sees 
constantly before him, that living line of distinction 
between right and wrong, which reaches on, over 



8 

death, and lies out, on the endless fields of eternity 
before him. If a minister of God would do his duty, 
he must be absolutely independent of both sides ; 
and ready to censure and commend, on the princi- 
ples of that distinction between righteousness and 
unrighteousness, laid down in the Word of God, and 
with absolute indifference to all other distinctions. 
Such, we have been, such we ever will be, while 
standing here. Our objects are not mere earthly 
objects. Our business rises beyond all that is 
merely national ; and takes its bearings and direc- 
tions, from that eternal line, which shall lie for ever 
between the different parties, who will be congre- 
gated in very different places in eternity. The dif- 
ficulty is, our hearers are not apt enough to think 
so, and therefore liable to misapprehend. It dis- 
tresses us, but we cannot help it. 

On the other hand the influences of a long-con- 
tinued excitement are not readily dismissed, even 
when men are disposed to be free from them. 
Though an occasion of such solemnity as this, is 
too sad for the indulgence of political preferences, 
(and we are assured, that not a man here would 
willingly lend his heart to them, to-day ;) still, it is 
difficult to speak of this event, without exciting 
thoughts, which ought not to desecrate our sadness, 
without waking emotions, which ought now to be 
hushed, under this pall of death, which Almighty 
God has hung over our nation ! Nor is it easy for 
men whose hearts have been so much, and so re- 
cently excited, at once to dismiss the influence of 
aroused sensibilities, and forbid improper feelings 
to be mixed up, with the matter of deep and affect- 
ing tenderness before us. 



But let us try. We speak not, we mourn not as 
partizans. We have a higher office,at the entrance 
gate of eternity, the Chief Magistrate of the nation 
has vanished out of our sight ! Not a man of us, 
will refuse, to day, to think and feel as an Ameri- 
can ; — and heaven grant, that not a man of us may 
refuse to think and feel, as a mortal, as a dependant 
and dying sinner ought ! 

The text admonishes us against trust in man, — 
in princes. It calls us to put our trust in God. The 
mention of official dignity in the text leaves little 
room to doubt, that its intention was to caution us, 
against an undue reliance upon princes, or official 
men, in reference to those very objects, for which 
they hold their office. They are only instruments ; 
frail instruments at least : Their breath goeth forth ; 
they return to the earth. Our hope should be in the 
God of Jacob, first and supremely. 

The event whidh has hung this pulpit in mourn- 
ing, seems to us, to contain a very special enforce- 
ment of the text. Notice some particulars. 

1. This is a calamity entirely new and unexpected. 
God has come before us in a new form of action. 
He has commissioned his servant, death, to invade 
a spot where he had never trodden before. Among 
our multitude of national mercies, it seems to me 
that we ought not to forget, that He who holds all 
lives in his hand, has never smitten the head of our 
nation before. We have never been flung into un- 
certainty, never had our expectations blasted, never 
had our fears gathering round the vacated seat of 
our highest magistrate, till now. For fifty-two years 
death was commanded to respect that chair. One 
2 



10 

after another of its occupants was permitted to re- 
tire from it ; and some of them, after filling up the 
remainder of their days in the studies and stillness 
of retirement, died, as most men would probably 
wish to die, in the bosom of their families, and 
soothed by those tender and familiar sympathies, 
which do most, of all earthly things, to rob death of 
his dreadfulness, and make us die in peace. The 
respect and affections of a grateful people followed 
their retiring magistrates to the walks of private 
life; and when, from time to time, their decease 
was announced, a nation put on the emblems of an 
unaffected sorrow. To qualify, or mar the purity 
of that grief then, there was little danger of the 
risings of partisan opinion. Those, whose death 
woke grief into exercise, died as private men. Then, 
there was little to hold back the hearts of the people, 
from bowing, in supreme and uninterrupted homage, 
before the God of all ; and aiming, without tempta- 
tion, to improve personally the event. Now it is dif- 
ferent. The Lord God has begun to deal with us 
in a new way. We have little anticipated it. Our 
past history had not compelled us to do so. And 
there is reason to fear, that our anxieties in the 
Presidential canvass, and our trust in the individual 
chosen, were not sufficiently qualified by the senti- 
ment which lies on the face of our text. Oh ! if we 
had duly remembered God, if we had been properly 
impressed with a sense of the uncertainty of life ; 
how much less trust would our hearts have reposed 
on the illustrious man, and how much more trust 
should we have been led to repose on God. Alas ! 
how prone we are to trust in men, without remem- 



11 

bering their frailty ! how apt to trust in man, when 
we ought to trust in God ! We forget what man 
i8 9 -L-his breath goetJi forth, he returneth to the earth. 

The Christian not only, but every sober student 
of the Bible, must have remarked how the Lord 
God changes the forms of his dispensations, when 
his dispensations have been disregarded, and a peo- 
ple have not acknowledged his hand. Stroke fol- 
lows stroke ! New forms of trial come ! Blows 
fall heavier, if blows are disregarded! The holy 
God, has often made famine follow in the track of 
war, and then sent pestilence on its dreadful march, 
along the very line already strowed with the bones 
of the slain and the starved ! One hope perishes 
after another ! He gave their increase unto the cater- 
pillar, — * * * he gave up their flocks to hot thunder- 
bolts, * * * he gave their life over to the pestilence. 
That which the palmer-worm hath left, hath the locust 
eaten ; arid that, which the locust hath left, hath the 
canker-worm eaten ; and that which the canker-worm 
hath left, hath the eater-pillar eaten. Tell ye your 
children of it, and let your children tell their children 
and their children another generation. — God is unwil- 
ling to punish. He usually warns before he strikes. 
He seldom opens all the stores of his judgments at 
once. 

Now, it is not for us to affirm, that the Lord God 
sends this event as a judgment. We do not posi- 
tively know that. But I am unwilling to believe, 
that there is a man among us, who does not think 
so. And certainly, when such a new occurrence as 
this, takes place, an occurrence, which is beyond 
question, a calamity ; — when heaven deals with us, 



12 

as it never has dealt before ; it becomes us with de- 
vout homage and submission to enquire, whether 
our calamity is not intended, as a national judg- 
ment. It is a shock to the nation. It is a shock 
in a new way. It seems to come upon the heels of 
calamities that preceded it. We have had wars. 
In unnatural contest, the arm of our father-land 
was lifted against us, and we whetted the steel to 
shed the blood of our kindred. The exasperated 
Indians have butchered our citizens, and our ven- 
geance has compelled them to the death-cry, in the 
depths of their own forests and fastnesses ! We 
have had commotions of violence among ourselves ; 
and disregard of the majesty of the Laws has com- 
pelled us to see, that such a spirit of violence must 
be checked, or we could not be secure in property, 
in liberty or life. Fires have done their work of 
destruction in our cities ;— from wrecked or burn- 
ing vessels, our friends have sunk with hopeless 
wailings in the deep waters ; — and distress has fol- 
lowed distress, in the trade and business of almost 
the whole nation. No matter what hath done these 
things. The Lord reigneth. The Lord hath done 
them. Would to God, we could make men believe 
this, — see it, — be affected by it ! Men are only his 
instruments ! Fires, storms are his ! Wars are his 
judgments ! If we honored Him and recognized Him 
as we ought, oh ! how often should we cease from 
our abusive contentions with one another, and pour 
our petitions into the ears of our Heavenly Father. — 
These things have come from God. And now, when 
a new calamity hath fallen upon us, if we ought not 
to regard it as a judgment, we certainly ought to 



lu 

see in it, a new act of Divine Providence, which 
tells us, what the text tells ! — The merchant can 
see, that the cherished hopes of his anxiety hang 
on a brittle thread ; when they go no farther, than 
to the national regulations of trade. All his expect- 
ed good may be dashed in a single hour ! The me- 
chanic can see, — the statesman, — the laborer in 
every department ; how easy it is for God, to turn 
their light into darkness ! We can all see, that God 
hath met us in a new form of action ; and in such 
a form, as ought to engrave the sentiments of this 
text deep on every heart ; Put not your trust in 
princes, nor in the son of man in whom there is no 
help ; his breath goeth forth ; lie returneth to his 
earth ! If the hand of God hath not unstopped 
another vial and poured it out upon us ; certainly, 
his hand hath written this warning in a new spot ; 
and its letters of blackness meet every eye, that is 
turned towards the Presidential chair ! That, seat 
is hung with black ! He who sat in it slumbers 
with the dead ! Our anticipations are rebuked. 
We cannot contemplate him filling up the days of 
his office, and retiring to die in the bosom of his 
family ! Another place has witnessed his exit ; — 
other friends have gathered round his death-bed ! 
And while a nation mingles its tears with those of 
his distressed family, let a nation remember the God 
of heaven means something, by this new form of his 
warning. 

2. This calamity has fallen upon us in a critical 
season. In other and older nations the succession 
of power has often been the signal for rivalry and 
rebellion. We are passing the ordeal calmly. But 



14 

each transition of power, from the hands of one man 
to those of another, constitutes a period of delicacy 
in our nation. But now, it is more than usually so. 
No matter whether the people think justly or not ; 
a vast portion of them do think, that their great in- 
terests are mainly affected by the action of the 
government. No matter whether there is just oc- 
casion for it, or not ; there has been a very unusual 
amount of excitement in political things. No mat- 
ter whether we had really any thing to fear ; it is a 
fact, that questions, great questions of statesman- 
ship, and national policy, and interpretation of the 
constitution, — matters which lie down deep in the 
foundations of our security, — such questions have 
been exciting the mind of the nation. At just this 
point of time, — at this crisis, — at this critical pe- 
riod, — the arm of God is seen ! There have been 
few periods, when the death of our Chief Magistrate 
would have been an event so full of warning ! We 
do not, indeed, anticipate from it, any great and 
signal disaster to the councils of our nation. Proba- 
bly, the course of things may go on, very much as 
if the event had not occurred. But we know not. 
And, at any rate, the Lord has sent this providence, 
at a period, when it seems to have a burden of sig- 
nificance. The nation is filled with complaints. 
Its interests are suffering. Matters of deep moment 
are pending. In ordinary times, such an event 
would not have been as fearful. We can bear some 
shocks, but the united force of them may shake us 
down ! Deep bedded on rock, as may be the pillars 
of our constitution, and firmly as they may withstand 
the pressure of one thing after another ; we are to 



15 

remember, that when the force of accumulated pres- 
sures crowds against them at once, they may be 
torn up from their firm foundations, and cease to 
overshadow and protect our dearest earthly inte- 
rests ! Amid our common and extensive derange- 
ments and distresses, we have, as a people, as a 
troubled nation, been very much disposed to attri- 
bute our troubles to human agency ; and if they re- 
ally sprang from that source, religion would not 
blame us for censuring their authors. But we have 
too much overlooked the fact of a divine rule. And 
now, God has himself given us a shock; and reli- 
gion will blame us, if we do not devoutly recognize 
his hand, and devoutly acknowledge that we need 
his protection, in this crisis of our affairs ! — And 
this warning comes, precisely according to his own 
majesty and our exigencies. He warns us by death. 
We need warning so. We are in danger of over- 
valuing the world, and the governments we live un- 
der. We shall not ourselves be fitted for the ex- 
traordinary duties of our troubled circumstances, if 
we forget our mortality. This idea is scriptural. 
When the Lord commanded Isaiah to make a pro- 
clamation in the ears of the nation about its desti- 
nies ; he was not ordered to reveal some deep secret 
of government, which study could not reach; or 
announce merely some coming overturning of na- 
tions. He took the prophet up to more sublime 
ground. The voice said, cry. And he said, what 
shall I cry 1 All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness 
thereof is as the flower of the field. The grass wither- 
ed, the flower fadeth ; because the spirit of the Lord 
bloweth upon it : Surely the people is grass. The 



16 

grass wither eth, the flower fadeth : but the word of our 
God shall stand forever. The frailty of man, and the 
firmness of God's promises constitute the most 
striking contrast in the universe. To make us wise, 
even in relation to our ordinary public duties and 
trials, God does not, merely or first, point our eyes 
to the mutations of empire, but to a more imposing, 
and affecting, and awful spectacle, — to a race, with- 
ering like the wilted grass down to the earth ; while 
he calls our attention to his eternal and unchanging 
word, to guide us in our difficulties, to console our 
wretchedness, and plant in our dying hearts the 
hopes of immortality ! — The act of the divine hand, 
which has dressed this house in mourning, seems 
like an act designed to teach us, that nothing but 
God, should be made our hope, in this crisis of our 
affairs. Happy for us, if we will think so, and take 
the God of Jacob for our help. We shall best pass 
the trial, — best stand in the crisis, and best get out 
of it, when we remember the God of heaven has 
warned us, and when we turn first to Him, in whom 
alone we can trust securely. 

3. The melancholy event before us, seems de- 
signed to impress the sentiment of the text, because 
of its connexion with habits of feeling, which are 
too common in the nation. It seems to me, that in 
all our prosperities, we have not been duly grateful. 
Who of us can pretend, that we have rendered unto 
the Lord according to the benefits we have received ? 
And more especially perhaps, we have been very 
slow to recognize his hand, in the afflictions we 
have experienced. While we have blamed men, we 
forgot Him, in whose hand are their hearts. Even 



17 

among the most pious in our churches, among those, 
who have seen and felt the sadness of our reverses ; 
how great has been the unwillingness to feel, that 
the Lord God was afflicting the nation. Our com- 
plaints have been about men ; about our rulers. 
The spirit of an ungenerous rivalry and partizan- 
ship has been too common. Its " violence must be 
greatly mitigated, if not entirely extinguished, or 
consequences will ensue, which are appalling to be 
thought of." If something of such a spirit is " ne- 
cessary, to secure a degree of vigilance sufficient to 
keep the public functionaries within the bounds of 
duty and law, at that point its usefulness ends. Be- 
yond that, it becomes destructive of public virtue, 
the parent of a spirit antagonist to that of liberty, 
and eventually, its inevitable conqueror." We have 
historic examples, " where the love of country and 
of liberty were at one time the dominant passion of 
the great mass of citizens. And yet, with the con- 
tinuance of the name and forms of free government, 
not a vestige of these qualities remaining in the bo- 
som of any of the" people. * * * " It is union 
that we want ; the union of the whole country for 
the sake of the whole country ; for the support, and 
for handing down to posterity those principles, for 
which our ancestors so gloriously contended." Our 
influences have been very greatly devoted to ques- 
tions of national policy ; and righteousness, religion 
does not condemn a deep interest in public affairs. 
But when, amid such an interest we forget God, we 
have greatly erred. The patriotism of the people is 
not to be rebuked ; — and they have a right to their 
own preferences, in respect to measures of govern- 

3 



18 

ment, and men to conduct them. The scrutiny, 
severe scrutiny of public men and public measures, 
is to be commended in our republic; but there 
seems to be some reason to fear, that this scrutiny 
has not always been as respectful, as it ought to be. 
That Christianity, which would teach us not to 
speak evil of the ruler of God's people, to show re- 
spect to magistrates, is worthy of <i deep and very pe- 
culiar regard in a land of freedom like this. We 
ought to respect office in the person of the ojjicer. The 
Savior himself did so. If we cannot respect the 
man, we are bound to respect the magistrate. And 
when the man is only elective, if we deny this re- 
spect, we are in danger of bringing the office into 
contempt, and diminishing the safe-guards, which 
law and its appointed officers were designed to 
throw around us. It is not suspicion, but history, 
that much of this evil has been springing up among 
us. Office itself, and the law which founded it, 
have been dishonored, by the erroneous method, in 
which official men have been scrutinized and stig- 
matized. The scrutiny was right, but the manner 
was wrong ; — it was peculiarly unwise, in this land. 
And this evil has arisen very much from overlook- 
ing Divine Providence. We have been reluctant to 
look beyond man. We have made our complaints 
about men ; and toe little told our sorrows to God. 
We have been very unwilling, in all our distresses, 
to own that it was God, who had smitten us. Be- 
cause our evils came through such instrumentalities, 
we forgot, that the God of heaven wielded them. 
How many even of Christian men have been so ab- 
sorbed in the conflicts of our political affairs, that, 



19 

in all their fears even, they did not retire for earnest 
prayer to God ! 

Perhaps it is one of the weaknesses of human na- 
ture, and certainly it is one of the tendencies of hu- 
man depravity, to be more insensible to divine pro- 
vidences, when human agencies are employed to 
execute them. We recognize the hand of God in the 
pestilence, in famine, in the earthquake and hurri- 
cane j in all those things, where we see no inter- 
vening agency. — We see none here. The disease 
which has vacated the presidential chair, obeyed no 
voice but God's. If we have been unwilling to own 
his hand before, let us own it now. He seems re- 
solved to make us own it. After repeated and con- 
tinued afflictions, sent in another manner ; he has 
reached forth his own hand to touch us. This is 
God. He himself is warning us. He seems resolv- 
ed to let us know it. If we have not deprecated his 
anger before, let us deprecate it now. Let us real- 
ize our prosperities are his gift ; and- our disappoint- 
ments and reverses come from his hand. Let us 
complain with less bitterness about] men, and learn 
to pray with more filial and ready reliance upon God. 
If it is not so with us, we shall have reason to fear, 
that he will not avert the evils which are dreaded, 
and will not preserve our public councils from insta- 
bility and confusion. If we have good rulers they 
are God's gift ; if we have bad ones, they are God's 
scourges. And, in few things, are we prone to for- 
get God more unwisely, than in relation to those 
magistrates, whom we elect from among ourselves. 
Now, God has made his hand visible. His own hand 
inscribes on the highest seat in our country, Put not 



20 

your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom 
there is no help : his breath goeth forth, he returneth to 
his earth. 

However reluctant the people of this nation may 
have been, amid their afflictions, to see the hand of 
the Almighty in them, they see it now. Here, they 
cannot mistake it. And it does seem, as if God 
were designing to teach them a lesson, which they 
have been very slow to learn. The lesson is laid 
down again and again in his word. It is the Lord 
that setteth up one and putteth down another. The 
Lord would have a nation know it. When even 
the sword carves its bloody way to the seat of em- 
pire, God calls us to know, it does so at his permis- 
sion. When treachery or intrigue works its way 
ink, rower, it is not done without God. When in- 
tegrity is seated at the helm of rule, it is by the fa- 
vor of Heaven. All this, his word tells, over and 
over again. We need the repeated lesson. We are 
prone to forget it* There seems to be some reason 
to believe, that men are nowhere else, in any impor- 
tant matter, so liable to dishonor God, by disre- 
garding his providences, as in respect to human 
agencies in government. More readily do they 
heed providences, in their sickness or health, — in 
their fields of barrenness or plenty, — on their oceans 
of shipwreck or success. And in this land, where 
succession in the head of the nation is not fixed by 
hereditary descent; where the popular will acts, 
directly and in sovereignty, upon the government, 
making and unmaking, at once, the laws and their 
administrators ; there may be, there seems to be, a 
peculiar danger of that impiety, against which the 



21 

Bible cautions us. We have nothing in the articles 
of our political liberty to force us upon God. Men 
are not born into office. The people put them there, 
and can put them out again. Rulers can be changed 
without the uncertainties and blood of revolution. 
And when a sober historian will trace the current of 
sentiment in our country, in respect to public and 
common recognition of God ; he will tell us such a 
tale of altered sentiments, among our people and 
among our rulers, as may well make a Christian 
tremble ! The Continental Congress appointed for 
themselves and recommended to the people repeated 
days of humiliation and prayer. In a general order 
to the army, Washington could rebuke profane- 
ness ; — in another, drunkenness ; — in repeated ones, 
call on his victorious associates in arms for ty «vout 
thanksgivings to the God of battles. The old Con- 
gress took official measures to have the people sup- 
plied with Bibles, by importation from Europe. 
Such were the men who achieved our liberty and 
reared the structure of our government ! And I am 
happy to add, that the inaugural address of our late 
President seemed like bringing us back to the sen- 
timents of the times in which he was cradled ; — - 
times, when official men were not ashamed, in their 
high-places, to honor the Bible and own the rule of 
its Author. In that address, the departed President 
said, " I deem the present occasion sufficiently im- 
portant and solemn to justify me in expressing to my 
fellow-citizens a profound reverence for the Chris- 
tian religion ; and a thorough conviction, that sound 
morals, religious liberty, and a just sense of religious 
responsibility, are essentially connected with all 
true and lasting happiness. And to that good Be- 



22 

ing, who has blest us by the gifts of civil and reli- 
gious freedom, who watched over and prospered 
the labors of our fathers, and has hitherto preserved 
to us institutions far exceeding in excellence those 
of any other people, let us unite in fervently com- 
mending every interest of our beloved country in all 
future time." 

But too commonly the sentiments of our nation, 
in respect to the government and its success, have 
been gradually moulded towards an impious atheism ! 
This is fearful history ! The Bible rebukes it ! And 
as if to check its dark usurpation, it has pleased the 
Lord God to show us, that He has something to do 
with our government ! Happy for us if we realize 
it. Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his 
help ; whose hope is in the Lord his God. 

The habits of thought and action in our land, the 
common sentiments of the country, in respect to 
God's providence over rulers and government, ought 
to be improved, and turned to a humble recognition 
of the Lord, by that event, which has laid the head 
of the nation in the tomb. If impiety will not own 
God without it, He will compel the acknowledgment 
by clothing a nation in sackcloth ! And if our re- 
peated distresses, which have so much connection 
with government, if our wars and mobs, and busi- 
ness distresses, and now, our national mourning, do 
not make us feel that God has also, something to do 
with our government ; rely upon it, we may expect 
another and a heavier stroke ! Almighty God is not 
merely the God of private men. He is the King of 
kings, and Lord of lords. In our associated capa- 
city, we are bound to recognize Him. He will not 
allow us to repose our hopes and find them unblast- 



23 

ed, on the mere arm of human power. He will 
punish national sins ; and this lesson is read in the 
departed glory, whose name only, hangs over the 
grave of desolated nations ! That lesson of piety, 
which lies on the face of the text, lies out also on 
the face of a world's history. Its hints of meaning 
are found in the ashes of empire ; — in crumbled 
thrones ; — along the path of the scourge of war, 
whitened with the bones of its butchered millions. 
God will verify his word. The world's history shall 
stand up, with its thousand startling confirmations ; 
and if we will open our eyes to read them, they will 
tell us, one after another, Put not your trust in 
princes, nor in the son of man, * * * happy is he that 
hath the God of Jacob for his help. 

4. The sentiment of the text finds an enforce- 
ment from this bereavement, by reason of the pe- 
culiar reliances, which the great mass of the people 
have been reposing on him, whom their suffrages 
placed at the head of the nation. It is not for us to 
say tfiey were ?m's-placed. Probably few in the land 
would be willing to say so, without some qualifica- 
tion, now. But we have nothing to do with that 
point. It belongs to politics, and not to preaching. 
It belongs not to religious politics. For our argu- 
ment, we need nothing more than the fact, that a 
large portion of the nation, have been relying greatly 
on the recently established administration, whose 
head is now no more. Another portion rested their 
hopes, in like manner, in another quarter. The 
successful majority were elated to still brighter 
hopes by success — These expectations of benefit, 
from the excellence, wisdom and energy of govern- 
ment, are not to be censured. They are right, they 



24 

are praiseworthy. They become wrong, only when 
they are excessive, and when they lead the public 
mind to a public forgetfulness of God. Good govern- 
ment is to be desired, prized, aimed after. But the 
desire, the valuation, the aim, are not as they should 
be, when God is not more relied on than govern- 
ment. 

Now our idea is, that this event which we deplore, 
has come in such connection as to call us to feel the 
force of the text. Glance at the aspect of affairs, 
as they stood. Things had gone bad among us. 
No matter, for our argument, whether by misrule, 
or otherwise. So it was. The nation was excited. 
The nation rallied. Safely, the nation passed 
through the unequalled conflicts of mustered opin- 
ion. With a submission worthy of all praise, the 
disappointed bowed in silence to the majesty of the 
popular will. With a moderation worthy of all 
praise, the successful began to use power, not for 
vengeance, but for the public weal. The nation 
had reached a resting place. The sea of politics is 
a sea of storms. It was good to reach a haven. 
Men breathed easier. The embers of dying hopes 
began to be lighted up. A conflict had passed, and 
a majority of the people rested more confident on 
the rock of our constitution. Unparalleled reliances 
were placed upon the new administration. The 
farmer, the merchant, the mechanic, even the man 
of letters and the minister of God, were looking for 
benefit. At precisely this moment, the arm of the 
Lord was reached forth ! It took that man, on 
whom, more than any other, the eyes and hopes of 
the nation rested ! Does not God Almighty mean 
something by it ? True, he has not dashed all a 



25 

nation's hopes ; — we expect a peaceful administra- 
tion of affairs. But, without crushing us utterly, 
how could the Lord God more plainly and signifi- 
cantly have warned us ? This melancholy event 
seems to preach a divine reliance to all the nation : 
Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man. 
It seems to send this voice down through all ranks 
of society. The voice reaches every counting- 
house and shop of industry. It goes out on the 
fields of labor ; — it stretches over plains and moun- 
tains ; — it takes to the wings of the wind, which bear 
commerce over the ocean! 

Purity and steadiness in human government are 
matters of vast moment. Civil rule affects, and 
must ever affect all the interests of society. It bears, 
on every man's property, every man's labor, liberty, 
security, and life. And if it stopped there, this 
pulpit would not have beon vocal with such lessons 
to-day. It does not. Civil rule affects mightily 
the interests of religion. The salvation of men's 
souls stands in connection with the peace or war, 
the virtue or vice, the quiet or disturbances of so- 
ciety, which often spring from civil rule, and spread 
their influences throughout the world. Regard for 
government and reliance on it, are religious duties. — 
But we have some reason to fear, that our reliances 
have been very excessive. Many among us have been 
looking for government to make us rich., without la- 
bor and persevering industry; to open means of 
living before us, without our own careful wisdom 
and prudence and frugality. This reliance has not 
only been wrong, but extremely perilous. The true 
object of civil government is not, to endow us, but 

4 



26 

to secure us ; — not to gift us with bounties, but to 
guard us from injuries. And men are engaged in a 
most perilous experiment, when they would pervert 
government into a machinery for donations ! Work- 
ing on that system, it will be a dangerous instru- 
ment. It will inevitably crush labor, dishearten 
industry, favor corruption and intrigue ; and in the 
end, use the multitude for the benefit of the few. 
Civil rule is not designed to enrich us, but to guard 
our rights, and foster and protect industry and vir- 
tue. — And when we see a great multitude of peo- 
ple, not turning their eyes first to the God of heav- 
en, and then to the sober paths of a careful indus- 
try ; — but, making haste to be rich, and resting, (with- 
out God, and the hopes of virtue,) all their relian- 
ces on the arm of government ; we should be re- 
creant to the duties of this pulpit, if we did not 
ring the words of this text in their ears ! We do 
not decide this point : we do not say that the peo- 
ple of our land generally do so. But we suggest 
the idea to your consideration, and Ave affirm, that 
there is some reason to fear an excessive reliance 
on men. — If our reliances are duly, and in a wise 
manner upon God, to give us the benefits intended 
by civil government ; we shall not fail, to aim after 
men of virtue to rule over us. No true American 
can ever desire to unite church and state ; and a 
man may be worthy of office, who belongs to no 
church. But we need men of virtue, of good mo- 
rals, men of God, to make them our men of trust. — - 
And when we are resting on God ; we shall not fail 
to aim after the extension and influences of common 
intelligence and virtue among the people. There, 
under God, lies the sheet-anchor of our security ! 



27 

An intelligent and virtuous people, under our con- 
stitution, will have a good government. Nothing 
can hinder it. But when we behold a common dis- 
regard for the extent of profaneness and profligacy 
among us ; — when we see the great mass of the po- 
liticians overlooking the very method, in which God 
grants his most signal national favors, (by making a 
nation truly virtuous ;) — when we behold such ea- 
ger multitudes, forgetting that a vicious populace is 
more to be feared, than a vicious government ; and 
relying more on men to govern, than on the grace of 
God to make men governable ; we find some reasons 
for fearing, that their human reliances are very ex- 
cessive, and their religious ones too small. — And the 
death, which clothes us in mourning, has been sent 
at just such a period, as if the Lord would warn us, 
to put not our trust in frail man that dieth ; and call 
us to more trust in Him. The illustrious patriot 
whom we mourn, has gone down to the grave ! In 
that very day his thoughts perished, when unparalleled 
reliances were reposing on him ! It has shocked 
the nation's mind ! And at such a point, — so soon 
after the acclamations of millions had followed him 
to his high seat of honor, — in one short month, — 
has God called him to the dust ; — that we cannot 
well avoid the conclusion, that God would turn our 
eyes from the chair of state, to the throne of heav- 
en ! — Let us look to God, He only liveth. He only 
is great. Let us remember the text, and engrave it 
on our heart, enforced by the memory of the illus- 
trious, but now departed Harrison. 

And beyond the mere doctrine of the text, may 
we not justly ask you, to bear a few words of more 
familiar exhortation. 



28 

Many of you have been embarked in conflicts of 
Opinion. You love your country and its constitu- 
tion. We do not censure it. But may we not ask 
you to let this sudden bereavement breathe the spir- 
it of kindness over your hearts ? Shall it not soften 
political asperities? Shall it not quell animosity 
and rancour ? Shall it not stop evil surmises and 
evil speakings ? Ye are brethren. The same good 
land gave you birth, or welcomed your advent from 
others. — The same constitution gives you freedom. 
You aim after the same rights and same securities. 
Ye are brethren. Why will ye not let this event 
quell all your animosities, teach you to love as 
brethren, and diffuse the spirit of forbearance and 
good will, through hearts solemnized by the pall of 
death ? Ye will. As Americans, as men, ye will. 
God calls you to do so. Learn to respect one ano- 
ther's opinions and feelings. Learn to forgive on© 
another's errors, and bend the eye of a brotherly 
indulgence on each other's faults. And let not the 
interests of public affairs, deny your attention and 
interest in those humbler matters of good neigh- 
borhood, and individual virtue, where lie the felici- 
ties and securities of social life. Let this sable pall 
chasten the currents of public opinion ; and remind 
you, that both yourselves and those around you are 
hasting to the same land of silence ! 

All of you have often felt proud beatings of heart, 
while you remembered you were Americans, and 
turned your eyes toward that temple of freedom, 
reared on the pillars of your country's constitution, 
Remember God's own hand planted those -pillars ; 
and never would this temple of our freedom have 
been reared, had not the hands that built it, moved 



29 

at the impulses of hearts, which acknowledged the 
God of heaven ! And never shall it crumble down, by 
any shocks of violence, if those who prize it, shall 
love one another, and trust in the God of heaven. — 
Be not idolaters. Try to think soberly. While 
you prize your country's constitution, worship God ! 
He has come near to your government, and the 
death-toll of a thousand bells has sent the shock of 
sadness through millions of hearts ! God shows 
you, that after all, government is his. His breath 
withered its head ! — Will you not carefully remem- 
ber it ? When you vote ; when you scrutinize 
legislation ; when you judge of public affairs ; will 
you not remember, that, first and supremely, you 
are to trust, in the God of heaven ; — and if as men, 
as freemen, you do not please Him, you can have 
little prospect of sending down unimpaired your 
cherished institutions to a coming posterity ? — The 
functions of the minister, as we think, do neither 
call, nor allow him to enter into your conflicts. Re- 
ligion is his business. And religion, passing over 
all outward matters, makes human hearts the seat 
of her empire. This is what we want of you. 
We want you to recognize God ; to be men of God ; 
to trust in God. We want you not to be political 
idolaters. And, to-day, in the name of the crape 
that covers you, we ask a place in your hearts, for 
the influence of religion, to guide, to mould, to pu- 
rify, all your public action and hopes. 

Some of you have hearts very peculiarly sensitive, 
and which demand of us, not exhortation, but rather 
consolation in your disappointments and distresses, 
and at least, a memorial-sketch, of the departed ma- 
gistrate ! Well, we do sympathize with you. We 



30 

mourn for your sorrows. And though we said the 
occasion was too sad for eulogy, we certainly feel 
no disposition to detract from the fair fame of the 
illustrious dead ! How could we ? He loved and 
served his country. He venerated Christianity. 
He was mild and merciful as brave. And even re- 
ligion must respect that tearful sensibility, with 
which he remembered that gallant band, whose 
bones now mingle with the dust, on the fields of 
Tippecanoe. — We will not blame your attachment, 
or your mourning ! But we tell you, your dearest 
earthly interests, your prosperity and your freedom 
cannot live long and flourish, if, as a people, you are 
impious towards God. Turn, oh, turn to the God 
of all goodness to guide you. 

But what is the world ! How vain and beggarly 
is all its honor, all its pomp and applause ! What 
extreme short-sightedness characterizes its most 
prosperous votary, compared with the humblest 
candidate for immortality ! 

See here ye worldlings ! the pall of death must be 
lifted, or your eyes will never see durable riches, even 
righteousjiess, — they are nowhere, but beyond death, 
in the heaven of that Jesus, who hath brought life 
and immortality to light ! — Let this pall rebuke your 
avarice. An eager spirit of gain, restless and un- 
happy, has been adding to our country's distresses, 
and public agitation. Let this solemn event lead 
you, to look behind the pail of death, and lay up 
treasures in heaven ! Your earthly disappointments 
are of comparatively small moment. If ye are rich 
only in this world's goods, — truth, with a tongue of 
dreadfulness, will soon stand over you to exclaim, 
Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for the mise- 



31 

ties that shall come upon you : your riches arc cor- 
rupted and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold 
and silver is cankered ; and the rust of them shall be 
a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it 
were fire. 

See here, ye hearts ambitious of distinction ! Can 
man be great, since the pall must speak of him 1 
Ask these weeds of mourning how much your covet- 
ed distinctions are worth. 

Young men, see here ! This is the end ! You 
stand now, on the threshold of life, with blood warm 
and bones full of marrow, and look forth on a life 
of hope and a world of promise ! We call you to 
look at the end I It is a sable gloom, that hangs 
over the end of all earthly distinctions ! 

See here, ye men of prayer ! Your deep interests 
in public affairs are not to be censured, if not ex- 
cessive ; but this pall tells you of their vanishing 
glory ! By this memorial I call on you, never to let. 
earthly interests lead you to a forgetfulness of those 
higher interests, which shall stand forth in all their 
glory, when the pall of death shall be hung over an 
extinguished universe ! — You live among a nation of 
immortal souls ! Pray, labour for the souls of men ! 
If this memorial reminds you of any over-valuing of 
earthly interests, when amid politics you forgot re- 
ligion, let this same memorial beseech you never to 
over- value them again ! 

See here, ye female auditors, whose happy retire- 
ment calls you to none of the turbulence and temp- 
tations of public life. Ye are always ready to sym- 
pathize in sorrows, to stand round the bed of afflic- 
tion, and to sanctify with tears of tenderness the 
drapery of death ! To you we assign the office to 



V-j.- j 



'- 



32 

pray for the widow and the orphan ! — And we ask 
too, that your pious influences and prayers may be 
given, for the salvation of the souls of busy men, — • 
souls periled, awfully periled, — amid the agitations 
and business of life ! — Ask the good God of grace 
to save your fathers, brothers, and sons ! 

See here, ye enquiring sinners ! You have begun 
to seek Christ ! He only can lift the pall, and let 
you look into heaven ! Will you not rush to his 
arms ? Surrounded with these weeds of mortality, 
will you not lift your eyes to his Father and your 
Father, and, with a fixed heart say, once and forever, 
I give up the world, and my soul takes Christ and 
immortality ! 

See here, little children ! The sight of these sable 
cloths will make a lasting impression on your hearts. 
They tell us, that a distinguished man is dead. But 
children die too. You will die. Remember, that on 
this solemn occasion, the minister of God told you, 
there is another world ; and in order to be happy in 
it, you need Christ to save you ; — you need God's 
forgiveness, through his blood, and hearts renewed 
bylhe Holy Ghost. You may die, before you reach 
manhood. Fear God, my children ; trust in Jesus 
and forsake sin, and then death cannot hurt you. 

My dear friends, — we are all mortal. We have 
few interests here. Let us remember it well. And 
while we drop the tears of affection over the memory 
of the President and the patriot, remembering the 
vanity of all things earthly, let us rise to a dignity 
worthy of our existence, and through the redemp- 
tion of Jesus Christ, seek for honor, and glory, and 
immortality ! God grant us this. Amen. 






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